


A Transfer of Skills

by Hours_Gone_By



Series: Assassin AU [5]
Category: Transformers - Aligned Continuity Family, Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Assassins & Hitmen, Dinner, Love Bites, M/M, Manipulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-13 20:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16899336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hours_Gone_By/pseuds/Hours_Gone_By
Summary: Prowl offers to let Jazz be a kept mech. Jazz would rather earn his own shanix. Prowl wants Jazz to work with him. Jazz doesn't want to kill.Prowl offers a compromise.Originally posted as part ofAU Yeah August 2018. Separating it out to make it easier to follow as the series continues.





	A Transfer of Skills

Jazz onlined in the morning with Prowl sprawled atop him. As far as Jazz could tell, the assassin was still ‘charging, head nestled into Jazz’s neck, his nose just brushing the mark he’d left there last night.

Prowl, it turned out, liked to bite. Jazz felt he should probably not be as turned on by that as he was. Which was a pretty good descriptor for this entire relationship, really.

His relationship with a cuddly, biting, ethical, assassin. Who had initially been contracted – provisionally, as Prowl insisted on reminding him – to kill him and had developed a fascination with him instead. And who, if he didn’t get up, was going to make Jazz late for work.

Jazz whispered Prowl’s name, shifting carefully. Maybe he could wriggle out from underneath and leave his lover sleeping while he went to work. Not that he particularly _wanted_ to, especially not with the mental image of Prowl sprawled out and waiting in his bed, but a mech had to have a paycheque.

Prowl stirred, muttering nonsense and nuzzling against Jazz’s neck and shoulder.

It was totally unfair for someone so deadly to be so adorable when they were waking up. For the first time, Jazz wondered what had driven Prowl to become an assassin and what he had been like before.

“Don’ go,” Prowl muttered, pressing his face against Jazz’s throat.

“Got to earn shanix, darling, remember?” Jazz whispered back. “Come on, let me up.”

“Mmf.” Prowl relented, flopping to one side. “’m rich enough. Lemme keep you.”

“Way too early for that,” Jazz said firmly, reluctantly getting up. Prowl had very different boundaries from anyone else Jazz knew, but he did respect Jazz’s once he understood what they were.

“Then you should work with me.”

“Doing what?” Jazz dabbed some repair gel onto the bite, debated trying to cover it.

“Hmm…spotter?”  

“No.” Covering the bite would just make it more obvious. Well, he’d never intended to keep this a secret, really. He could mostly tell his coworkers about his lover, they’d just know Prowl as Chase instead.

“Well, I wouldn’t make you bait.” Prowl stole Jazz’s pillow and nestled into it. He _had_ a pillow, he just preferred to use Jazz’s – or Jazz. “Mm. I’ll think of something. Go be respectable, lover."

***

Jazz’s most recent investigation had wrapped up, and there was nothing new in his inbox. He had some administrative things to do, some queries from colleagues to answer. A little bit of research, a message from a prosecutor informing him he was no longer required as a witness.

He was bored.

If he worked with Prowl – though it still begged the question ‘doing what’ – he doubted he’d ever be bored again. Jazz wasn’t sure he’d ever be comfortable with the assassination part of Prowl’s life, even with Prowl’s assurance that none of his kills were ‘very _nice_ mecha.’

 _`Financial investigation. Research.`_ Prowl messaged him later. Normally Jazz wouldn’t have responded during work hours, but he needed to pad out his work so it would last till the end of the day.

` _What about it?`_

_`That’s what you can do.`_

_`That’s already what I do.`_

` _But not with me. Come to Incendium after work.`_

Incendium was one of the top-tier restaurants in Altihex, requiring reservations deca-cycles in advance. Prowl’s brother, Smokescreen, owned it and Prowl had access to his brother’s private dining room. Smokescreen used the restaurant to launder the shanix he earned through gambling and Prowl obtained through his contracts. It was not the sort of place Jazz would typically have been able to set boot in, being far beyond his budget, but Prowl thought nothing of taking him there regularly. Enough so that the doormech simply nodded to Jazz and let him in when he arrived, to the murmured annoyance and envy of several other mecha hoping for a table to open up.

“Ah,” Prowl said in satisfaction when Jazz was ushered into the private room by the host. “Had your fill of respectability for the day?” He didn’t give Jazz a chance to answer, instead cradling Jazz’s head in his hand and kissing him warmly. “You asked me once what I would say if you said walking away from what I do was the price to be with you.”

“I remember.” It had been the catalyst for Prowl to kiss him for the first time, after all. “You said it wasn’t too high.”

“I did,” Prowl agreed, “and it isn’t.”

“But what else would you do?” Jazz had no idea what other skills his lover possessed. “What do you have to fall back on?”

“Oh, it’s not really a fallback.” Prowl took Jazz’s hand and led him over to the table, seating him. “Merely a – transfer of skills.” He draped himself across Jazz’s lap, teasing for more kisses. “We’re going to be private investigators, lover.”

“That – “ Jazz stopped to think about it. “Actually, that makes a lot of sense.” Prowl was used to doing surveillance on people, could certainly take care of himself, and this wouldn’t involve killing people.

“I thought so.” Prowl licked Jazz’s neck, slowly tracing the faint, faint outline of the bite. “I’ve already found a contract – someone asked me if I knew someone who could do it and I took it instead. How do you feel about looking into the background of Ratbat?”

“Polyhex Senator Ratbat? The one whose opinion can allegedly be bought?”

“Mhm. Our - ”

There was a gentle chime at the door. Prowl briefly disengaged himself to open it and allow the server in with their dinner and drinks. Prowl took the chair opposite Jazz while their dinner was set out and stayed there once the server had left.

“As I was saying,” Prowl continued, “our client wants us to look into the good Senator, see if there is any sort of connection, financial or otherwise, between him and High Council Secretary Contrail, the Decepticon movement, or both.”

“Not impossible,” Jazz said slowly. “But that kind of investigation – the information’s buried deep, under layers and layers of fake names and misdirection. It would take a long time.”

“True. And it wouldn’t be entirely safe – I can promise that some clients would be mecha I’ve worked with before. Not that you’re entirely safe now.” Prowl smiled at him. “Not that we’d have met if you were.”

Jazz had already had one hit taken out on him because his investigation into the finances of Barricade, former Praxian mob head in Altihex, had gotten him too close to something. Prowl had provisionally accepted the contract before deciding it would be unethical to kill Jazz and had warned him instead. Then developed a fascination with him and – in his own unique, Prowl fashion – asked him out.

“Besides, lover,” Prowl continued, “if you wanted safe you wouldn’t be sitting here with me. You’ve had enough of _safe_. Besides,” Prowl shrugged, “my reputation alone is more than enough to protect you from most. For the rest, I’ll teach you to defend yourself. Not the ‘disable them so you can get away’ self-defence you already know. You’re going to have to learn to take a mech out.”

“I don’t want to kill,” Jazz said firmly.

“If it comes down to you, or them, you will kill,” Prowl replied, equally firmly. “I’ll teach you to incapacitate since that’s what you prefer, but if it comes to dying themselves or killing someone else, a mech will always kill.”

“Prowl…”

“How was the office today?” Prowl slipped the question into Jazz’s hesitation as smoothly as a blade through armour seams.

Jazz sighed. “You know how it was.”

“Safe?” Prowl prodded.

“Safe and, yes, boring,” Jazz admitted.

“And what did you think of? How different it was than being with me? Sneaking into places we strictly ought not to be?” Prowl smiled slowly. “The handcuffs? Oh,” he added, “you should see yourself in infrared right now.”

“All of that,” Jazz confessed. “And, how I’d never be bored if I worked with you.”

“I’d make sure of it,” Prowl promised, giving Jazz one of his seductive half-smiles. “So, the answer is…?”

“You already know what the answer is.”

“It only counts if you actually say it, lover,” Prowl reminded him with a smirk. “You know that.”

“Yes,” Jazz said, starting to smile, “I’ll come work with you. Of course I will.”

“Excellent,” Prowl purred, all his nearly-overwhelming intensity focused solely on Jazz. He raised his glass. “To us, lover. Let’s see if we can’t bring a Senator or two down.”

**Author's Note:**

> Assassin!Prowl is one of those people who are flexible in ways it really doesn’t seem they should be.  
> 


End file.
